Cranial nerves refer to the nerves that emerge from the brain directly. This is in contrast to the spinal nerves that come from spinal cord segments. There are 12 pairs of cranial nerves in human and only the both the first and the second cranial nerve pairs originate from cerebrum. All the other pairs originate from the brainstem. Other than the cranial nerve II, all the other cranial pairs belong to the peripheral nervous system (PNS). The cranial nerve ganglia come from the central nervous system (CNS) (Patestas and Gartner).
The seventh pair of cranial nerves is the ...
